


One Bad Day (and the Better Night That Followed)

by mars_morpheus



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: And He Shouldn't Have Been In Arkham, Gothic Literature, Jeremiah Valeska Being a Jerk, Jerome Is a Minor, Multi, Same Goes For Jonathan Crane, Soft Jerome Valeska, Victor Fries is the Mom Friend Confirmed, Who By the Way Is Baby, but I love him, yes - Freeform, you read that right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mars_morpheus/pseuds/mars_morpheus
Summary: The city has gone dark, and the Penguin's ambitions are boundless. Therefore, Victor Zsasz is on his way to the circus, to retrieve a certain individual. But he can't help noticing Jerome Valeska's bony limbs (just because they're poking him), nor can he ignore the pathetic squirming as he chokes the redhead out of consciousness (this is your cult leader?). How old is this guy, anyway?BLEASE comment I don't even care what you say I am so lonely
Relationships: Alvarez/Victor Zsasz, Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jerome Valeska/Happiness, Nora Fries/Victor Fries, Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 46
Kudos: 56





	1. Victor, Veronica, and Valeska

Zsasz  
Victor Zsasz was not a good guy, but he could make an effort for the right price. And he thought that this was a good thing. He, accompanied by his friend-slash-employee Veronica, was driving toward the Gotham City power plant, which wasn’t currently planting any power (or whatever that’s called). Victor didn’t make a habit of being nervous, but he was, a little, knowing what the job was. Find Jerome Valeska, bring him back alive. No thanks. Kill him, sure. But why would you want him alive? He didn’t know an excessive amount about his target – there wasn’t much to know. Valeska had killed his mom a few years ago, done time in Arkham, then led a small terrorist ring for a very short time until Theo Galavan stabbed him in the neck at a fundraiser. Although Victor had also heard some things about Galavan, who was now dead, being the secret ringleader of Valeska’s gang. Now, somehow, Valeska had been resurrected. Some cult guy had cut off his face, and last time Victor turned on the TV, he’d reattached it using an office stapler and then blown up the cultist, inside the power plant. So now the city had no power and lunatics were running around stabbing each other left, right, and center. What a place to live.

  
Anyway, Oswald Cobblepot was paying Victor to kidnap Valeska from his murder party or whatever, and what the Penguin pays for, the Penguin gets. But Victor didn’t have to like it.

  
“You think he’ll have backup?” He asked Veronica, conversationally.

  
She shrugged. “I’ll sit up on a roof and snipe ‘em, anyway.”

  
“Keeping the bastard alive’s gonna be the tricky part, I guess, if he’s any good in a fight.”

  
“What, you think Penguin wants him undamaged or something?”

  
“Too late for that. Did you see his face?” They both laughed, but Victor still couldn’t shake his traitorous nerves, especially as they pulled up down the street from the plant. Veronica hopped out of the car without obvious fear, but he wasn’t able to contribute to their traditional pre-hit fistbump with his usual enthusiasm. She disappeared into the darkness. He followed shortly after, fingers ghosting over the places he knew he had knives concealed.

  
The plant was a spot of light in the dark of the rest of the city, seeing as it was on fire. All around him, people were fighting: gunshots rang out like an incessant drum section, and he stepped in what he was pretty sure was a puddle of blood. Smaller explosions, every so often, put him in mind of fireworks. None of the people seemed to notice Victor walking down the middle of the road, too busy killing each other to care. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy violence, but this was just tacky.

  
He caught sight of a figure in white walking down the sidewalk. Ah, there he was. Valeska wandered off down a street where the lights got dim, and Victor thanked whatever higher power there might be that Veronica was within range. He got closer to his target, gathering composure. But he found himself ducking behind a building as Valeska whipped his head around, perhaps hearing footsteps behind him. His face really was bad. Again, Victor approached. This time, he took a breath and went for it, clapping a hand over Valeska’s mouth with his other arm choking him out. The other man’s hands flew up, beating weakly at Victor’s, not proving to be much of a challenge. The real trouble, he noted as Valeska’s movements slowed, was trying not to gag at the feeling of having his hand over that loose, stretched skin.  
Finally, Valeska was unconscious, and Victor waved up at Veronica’s silhouette before lifting their target over his shoulders and carrying him through a side street and back to the car. The guy was surprisingly light, white jumpsuit belying the boniness of his limbs. A strand of his hair tickled the back of Victor’s neck.

  
“I’ll drive, yeah?” said Veronica as they both arrived. He nodded, and they did another fistbump, this time more confidently on his part. He climbed into the backseat, next to where he’d dumped Valeska, and buckled both their seatbelts, just to be safe. And because it was funny.

  
The car started to move. Victor looked out the windows at the chaos around him, smirking. Never had he been more glad to have a Purge contingency plan.

  
A weight settled on his shoulder. He looked down to find Valeska’s head resting on him – gross! – and tried to shift him away, but found that untangling the man’s limbs from the seatbelt was at this point, in the moving vehicle, impossible. So the head had to stay. Now that he’d gotten a good look at him, though, it was clear that calling Valeska a man wasn’t quite accurate. Victor remembered, vaguely, that he’d killed his mom at seventeen. He did the math, counting out the time he’d been dead. He had to count again. He would never have though it possible, to have so much blood on your hands before nineteen. The kid was still a minor for another two or three years. He was starting to think there might have been something to that rumour about Galavan controlling Valeska all along. But it didn’t matter, and it wasn’t his job to care.  
Valeska made a noise, and Victor jumped. But the kid didn’t move except to tense up, and Victor realised he was having a nightmare, further proof coming in the form of another noise, a whimper or a strangled sob. Victor honestly didn’t know how to react.

  
“What’s going on back there?” asked Veronica.

  
“I think he’s… dreaming.”

  
“Sounds like a kicked puppy.”

  
Victor hummed in agreement. “So if he was eighteen when Galavan stabbed him, how old is he now?”

  
“Victor,” she said. “I say this with love, but this kind of conversation is like naming chickens for you.”

  
“Well, we’re not killing this specific chicken.” He sighed. “But I see your point.”

  
She was right, of course. Victor adjusted Jerome’s head on his shoulder and focused on blocking out the suspicion that perhaps in this case he didn’t quite know whether he was doing good or bad.


	2. What Kind of Bullshit?

Zsasz

Victor was struck again by how small Jerome really was as he carried him into the safehouse. The Penguin, currently Gotham’s mayor, had a tendency to prepare for the worst, and he’d been told to bring Valeska to one of his hideouts once he had him. Veronica walked slightly behind and to the right of Victor. There were lights on inside the ground floor, likely running off of a backup generator, but the small house gave off a distinct air of not having been lived in.

“Is that him?” Victor turned to his left, where Oswald Cobblepot stood expectantly. The short, short-tempered kingpin limped forward, flanked by his green-suited friend (or boyfriend; Victor wasn’t sure, and it would be unprofessional at this point to ask), Edward Nygma.

Victor easily identified the man leaning against the doorway they’d come from as Victor Fries, usually called Mr. Freeze. The epithet came from Fries’s unusual condition: he could only function at sub-zero temperatures, and he clanked around in his trademark containment suit with a “cold gun” that shot some kind of ice sauce. Victor was personally pleased with Fries’s other name, as he’d experienced plenty of mix-ups due to their shared first name.

He nodded in response to Oswald’s question. “Where do you want him?”

“Follow me.” The Penguin paused, looking Veronica up and down. “Not you.”

On his way past, Victor nodded at Fries. “Victor.”

“Victor,” responded Fries, marching along behind. His suit hissed and sent loud, metallic echoes bouncing around the hallway. Victor shifted Jerome’s weight in his arms as they walked down a rickety spiral staircase, taking care to support the boy’s head.

“So, what’d you want Valeska for, anyway?”

Oswald chuckled from up ahead. Nygma explained: “Mr. Valeska is a very wanted man. The GCPD would like nothing more than to have him safely locked up, and they’ll get more and more desperate as time goes on.”

“Desperation means money! And favours,” crowed the Penguin.

Finally, Oswald stopped in front of a metal-barred cell, quite far underground by Victor’s estimate. There was nothing at all inside the cell. Victor laid Jerome down on the floor, and as he stepped out Nygma hurried to lock the door.

Oswald shifted his weight off of his twisted leg. “We four are now the only people who know the whereabouts of Jerome Valeska. I don’t intend to keep him long, just until I can use him, but in the meantime he will need constant supervision.”

“So you need a babysitter?” Victor tilted his head. “How much?”

“I was thinking that we could all take shifts,” cut in Nygma. “Stay sharp, make sure he doesn’t escape?” Victor thought that all this precaution might be overkill for a person as demonstrably weak as Jerome.

“You’d all be generously compensated, of course.”

“I’m in,” said Victor, nonchalantly.

Fries shrugged loudly. “Don’t have anything better to do.”

Oswald and Nygma smiled, almost in sync. “Perfect.”

And that was how Victor Zsasz ended up moonlighting as a babysitter for an eighteen(ish)-year-old murderer. Fries had taken the first six-hour shift, and Victor was up next; he’d be there from one to seven in the morning. Thankfully, lights were on in the short hallway adjacent to Jerome’s cell. Victor planned on spending the hours reading. He had a habit of going through the bookshelves of the people he killed, if he happened to be at their homes. There was a spot of dried blood on the paperback cover of his most recent conquest. The hobby made him feel a little more sophisticated, and like he was aging gracefully. Like Don Falcone, not that he’d ever be that fancy.

He settled down on the pillow he’d brought to sit on, and wrapped a light blanket around his shoulders. He was leaning against the wall across from the cell, so he could see anything that happened inside it. It was cold down here, and the bare concrete floor only made matters worse. Jerome was still asleep, which seemed unhealthy considering the manner in which he’d been knocked out. But he was breathing. Victor supposed that coming back from the dead might take a lot out of a guy.

Just as he’d come to this conclusion, Jerome stirred. He was curled up facing away from the door, so Victor couldn’t see his face until he started and scuttled back to the leftmost wall. Their eyes met, Jerome’s wide and panicked for the briefest millisecond. His demeanour changed, however, when he realised he wasn’t alone.

“Hey.” Jerome gave him a jaunty little wave. “How’s it hangin’?”

Victor nodded at him and returned to his reading, pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to engage in conversation.

“It’s a beautiful night out there,” continued Jerome, melodramatically. His voice was hoarse. “Don’tcha just love a good riotous mob in the evening? Really jogs the liver.” He coughed and gagged suddenly, causing Victor to glance up in concern. “Sorry ‘bout that. Hole in the throat, you know. Speaking of which, am I correct in assuming I’m talking to the guy who knocked me out?”

Victor nodded. “Victor Zsasz. Nothing personal.”

“Sure, sure. I guess you already know who I am.” Victor nodded again with a slight smile.

Jerome went to fake scratching his chin, then did a double-take. He ran both hands up the sides of his cheeks and over his forehead. “Huh,” he said. “I’m noticing a lack of staples.”

Victor peered through the bars. Now that it was pointed out to him, the kid was right. Somebody had replaced his crude attempt to reattach his face: now, precise medical stitches held the loose skin in its place, less stretched and warped than it had been. Victor chuckled. “That’s an improvement.”

“I dunno,” responded Jerome. “What’s that saying? Pretty is as pretty does? You think I deserve to be _this_ pretty?” He laughed, clearly trying to emulate his old cackle but settling for a sort of convulsive croak.

“I wouldn’t say pretty,” Victor assured him.

The comment was received by another fit of laughter as Jerome stood slowly. He cracked his back and neck. “Ooh! Hear that?” He made cracking noises with his mouth. Next, he skipped forward to the iron bars and draped his arms through them. “Whatcha reading?”

Victor held the cover up. It was “The Mask of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allan Poe, part of a collection of short stories. He’d never read it, not being much of a reader, but he’d heard somewhere that it was spooky. The woman it had belonged to had just put it down to get a cup of tea, when Victor shot her. She didn’t have much more use of it. Jerome sighed loudly. “Guess you’re not the reading out loud type, huh. Whatever will I do to occupy myself?”

It didn’t take long for him to find something. Within minutes he was jumping around the cell, doing a lot of mediocre acrobatics. He was continually bumping into the walls; physical exertion, combined with a lack of breath due to his own commentating on the performance, required him to sit down to take a breath very often. Victor wasn’t entirely sure whether Jerome’s exhaustibility had to do with his resurrection, or whether he’d just always been this inept. He was loud, that was for sure.

It must have been four or five before Jerome finally settled down. Obviously unwilling to relinquish whatever control over his situation he felt like he was in possession of, he walked around the cell chatting about topics on a wide range, from breakfast foods to “this movie I saw ‘bout half of one time cause I lost two teeth right in the middle of it”. Eventually, though, he seemed to realise he’d been wandering in smaller and smaller circles for the better part of forty minutes, and he sat down again. When he finally lay down, he turned over to face Victor. “How’s the book?”

Victor hadn’t made very good headway on it. He wasn’t a fast reader at the best of times, and Jerome’s constant noise was a formidable distraction. But it wasn’t a long book, so he was about halfway through. “It’s okay,” he said.

“What’s it about?”

“Some kind of demon party, and then a disease who’s also a guy crashes it.” He shrugged. It was kind of a lame plot. He supposed that he wasn’t really qualified to criticise a classic, though if he’d written it there would’ve been guns.

“What kinda disease?” Jerome wiggled his eyebrows and cracked up laughing.

Victor rolled his eyes. What a child.

“Tough crowd,” Jerome muttered, then asked, “So, what, some perv’s just wanderin’ around killing people and the guy’s like, ‘Oh yeah, this is how the flu works’?”

“Pretty much.”

“And _who’s_ the crazy guy?”

“A prince or something.”

“What kinda _bullshit_ – jeeeeeez.”

He seemed to have fully exhausted himself, because he flopped onto his back like a sad, skinny starfish and was quiet for the longest while yet. Victor knew the activity portion of the night was just about over for now when the kid sighed softly and curled up facing the far wall, as he’d done before waking up.

The rest of the night – morning, technically – passed without event, as Victor was pretty sure Jerome was either asleep or doing a very good impression of someone who was asleep. He did notice, though, the way Jerome had his arms wrapped around himself, and the almost-imperceptible shivers that ran through him every so often.

Nygma came to relieve him just as he’d finished his book. He could hear the tall man’s footsteps long before he could see him, due to the acoustics of the hallway, stairs and a little way before that. He stood up, legs half-asleep. He bit his lip – then, impulsively, he shoved his blanket and pillow through the bars. And then the book. He hesitated for a moment before hurrying off up the hall, hardly acknowledging Nygma at all on his way out.


	3. The Red Mask of the Swamp Creep

Jerome

It was funny how wrong you could be about yourself. For example, Jerome had always imagined that he’d be great at being locked up. He’d thought Arkham had proved that, but he was now quickly realising that he’d never been _really_ bored there, seeing as he was in with the whole Maniax gang, stupid assholes though they were. Now, though? He didn’t know how long he’d been in this little cell total, but it had taken him a grand total of like eight waking hours to get totally bored of his own company.

And now he was being watched by randos for some reason? What was this, forced babysitting? The guy sitting outside his cell right now was the second one Jerome had been awake to see. He was dressed in a green button-up top, and he wore his glasses in the kind of way that made you look like a snob. The last one had seemed okay, for a kidnapper. He was bald, wearing all black, and he’d left Jerome a blanket and a pillow. On the one hand, that was great because he’d been really cold, but on the other hand he hated to think that his coldness had been noticeable. What kind of pathetic loser got pity from a kidnapper? Of course the bald guy had also left him the book he was reading, but that was a whole other story.

The thing was, when you spent your whole childhood getting kicked around a travelling circus, you didn’t get a lot of chances to go to school or anything, and what you did learn was mostly in one ear and out the other. Plus, nobody ever thought Jerome was gonna learn anything, because they were too busy thinking he was just dumber than – well, they thought he was dumb, anyway. He could read and all, but he’d always had trouble with words on pages. The letters just floated around each other and away from him. So you couldn’t exactly blame him for not getting the “Red Mask of the Swamp Creep” or whatever the hell it was, especially with the stupid little font it was in. He’d flipped through it a little, but no good.

“Hey, greenie.” Jerome slung his arms through the cell bars.

The man had been watching him nonstop, writing notes on a clipboard the whole time. “What?”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Ed Nygma,” he said, scribbling something more on the paper.

“Whatcha writing?”

Yeah, he was definitely a snob. “Why do you need to know?”

Jerome leaned backward, holding a bar in one hand for support. “Entertainment! It’s _so boring_ in here.”

Ed put down his pen. “How can you be bored? You haven’t stopped dancing around once except to sleep. Plus, you have a copy of a great work of classic literature.”

“This?” Jerome picked the book up off the ground and groaned, holding it between two fingers like a dead fish. “Who gets this? It’s just about a billion pages of stupid.”

“It is not. I’m honestly surprised that someone like you is even able to read.”

“I know,” he exclaimed, bowing. “I’m shockingly perfect and stunningly beautiful.”

Ed scoffed. “You’re insane.”

“Yeah. So, anyway, the main guy’s totally cracked, right? Cause I know there’s no masked creeper wandering around the house.”

“No! It’s a symbol of – ugh, of course you’re taking it literally.”

“Whatever, nerd boy. Is he or isn’t he?”

“He isn’t. The mask is really –”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can’t just tell me!” Jerome feigned horror. “Start at the beginning, buddy, jeez.” He held the book between the bars.

There was a long moment in which Ed stared at him with either annoyance or confusion. Jerome had his fingers crossed behind his back, hoping that he’d get lucky and the nerd would take the bait. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t read much. The cover looked cool, and he was really bored, but he just didn’t know most of the words. Plus, he joked to himself, trying to suppress a giggle, it wasn’t like anyone read him stories as a child.

Finally, Ed stood and took the book. He took care to avoid touching Jerome, like sewn-on-face disease was catching. He sat back down quickly, and Jerome gathered his pillow and blanket. He folded himself into a pile on the floor, leaning against the wall closest to the bars, pillow behind him and blanket wrapped around him. Ed narrowed his eyes at him, possibly suspecting what was really going on. But he picked up the book anyway, and started to read.

“The red death had long devastated the country.”

Jerome interrupted. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“The red death. What kinda stupid thing to say? Like, the yellow existential fear? Or the green intellectual snobbery?”

“It’s a disease. You’d know that if you’d let me continue.”

Jerome acted understanding and waved his hand toward Ed. “Ah. Go ahead, then.”

Ed cleared his throat.

“No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal – the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.”

Well, holy shit. Pretty cool.

“But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious –

“– that means clever,” explained Ed.

“When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys.”

“His _what_?”

“Crenellated abbeys. Simply put, a building with notches in the tops or sides of the wall.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t he just say that?”

“Anyway.

“This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste.”

Jerome closed his eyes and imagined the building as it was described: the “strong and lofty wall”, the iron gates, the huge hammers closing up the people inside so nobody could get in or out. He kept on having to shake images of the circus out of his imaginings, though around every corner there seemed to be a flash of tent fabric or the entrance to the hall of mirrors. It never left you, did it? He wondered. Maybe he was just crazy.

Then again, he thought, maybe not. There seemed to be similarities, especially once Prince Prospero was throwing his thousand-person party, with clowns, dancers, and actors. The musicians in the story seemed to be playing the old record they used to play over the loudspeakers, cracked vinyl translating through their instruments. All the attendants were masked. Jerome walked among them behind his closed eyes, blending in despite or because of his face. The seven rooms of the party were equally strange, colour-coded and dim. Except the last room.

“But in the western or back chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood –tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

“It was within this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a not and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound…”

He was actually kind of liking this story. It was spooky, but in a fancy way, probably because it was so old. He almost even liked how long-winded it was; he could see everything as if it were really happening, if he listened. He’d never been a great listener, but this was a little different, he thought. Being read to was nice.

For the first time, Jerome paid attention until the end of something. He was pretty sure he did, anyway. He drifted off to sleep just as Ed closed the book’s cover, and it was the first time in a long time that he didn’t dream of the circus.


	4. The Most Casual Tone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is really just Oswald being hella into Ed, and it's pretty short.

Oswald

Oswald Cobblepot’s head was throbbing. That ought to teach him to drink in the evenings as much as he did, but he knew that realistically he’d just continue. The stresses he was constantly under – neverending. And now, to add to them, he was here for what felt like innumerable hours.

Edward had given him a word of advice as they switched places. Ed hadn’t been wearing a full suit, just a button-up – green, of course – with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Oswald had not quite known where to look. That wasn’t the point, though; Ed’s advice had been to read to the prisoner. _Read to him?_ he’d repeated incredulously. _Are you branching out from riddles to jokes, now?_ But the taller man had shaken his head and held out a small book, “Poe – Collected Works”, and informed him that he’d made it through the first story, but that there were a few more to choose from. And that had been it.

So, now, Oswald himself was perched on the folding chair he’d carried down with him. He’d had some trouble with the chair, especially on the narrow stairs, but without it his leg would truly suffer, and he wasn’t about to involve somebody else in this venture just to spare himself a little inconvenience. Ed would scoff at this train of thought, if he heard it, and remind Oswald that that’s exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Then Oswald would pretend to be busy with something so that he could face away from his friend and hide the colour heating up his face. And then, in the most casual tone, Ed would say something exceedingly kind. Oswald was often glad twofold to have hidden his blushing.

He flipped through the little book. Valeska was passed out in his cell, curled up under a fuzzy blue blanket. Oswald had narrowed his eyes at that upon arriving, wondering who’d taken it upon himself to give the psychopath anything. He had no respect, no liking, for Jerome Valeska. The man was a loud, brash menace with no regard whatsoever for systems. Which was not to say that Oswald himself was a cruel man. He’d had Valeska’s face sewn back on properly, even if it was just by Ed, whose past at the GCPD had made his fingers deft and good with medical supplies. Oswald knew that from the time he’d spent with the ex-CSI while he’d nursed him back to health.

So Ed had chosen the first story in the book. Of course he had. That was his M.O., sometimes his weakness: he had to do everything right, always, start to finish. So Oswald, mindful of what his friend would say if he were here, decided that in the case that Valeska awoke, he’d try reading the next part of the book. But in the meantime he might as well take a look at the chapter Ed had gone through.

He'd only made it through a few paragraphs before he reached the first little green pencil mark. An underlined word. He smiled to himself and wondered what it was that had occurred to Edward, so that he’d wanted to remember it. He was a strange man. So smart, always figuring out some science-y fact, always asking riddles instead of just saying whatever it was he meant. Oswald never answered correctly, but his friend had stopped getting annoyed over it. Now he’d just explain the answer, in a way that made it easy to understand. He was the best Chief of Staff – to keep things professional – the Penguin could ask for.

To be distinctly unprofessional, Oswald seemed to find himself very attracted to Ed. He hadn’t at first, when they’d met at the GCPD, back when he was a CSI in baggy shirts, hair pushed clumsily to the side to keep it out of his eyes. But now… This new side of his friend, this _Riddler_ persona, he knew how to dress. Green suited him, as did his new fitted jackets and fondness for iridescence. And the way he always introduced himself, that little pose he’d do, like an actor onstage. He still kept his hair back, though. It was certainly better than it had been, and probably better for Oswald’s focus as mayor. The few times he’d seen Ed’s curly bangs falling over his forehead, he’d almost considered just kissing him, consequences be damned. But he was never sure whether his feelings were reciprocated. Or even acknowledged.

He read the story through a few times, and the rest of the book once. Perhaps he might bring it up to Ed later, finally really understand his friend’s input. His shift ended more quickly than he’d expected, Valeska remaining asleep until Victor Fries arrived to take over. Yes, Oswald thought he’d go find Edward.


	5. That Future Movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I made a couple of tiny edits to the previous chapters, which guaranteed you don't care about. Also, Veronica the Zsaszette is no longer babysitting, because I wanted to focus on the preexisting characters. The plot will be picking up more soon!

Jerome

Jerome finally woke up again what must’ve been a long while later. He let out a laugh upon opening his eyes, just in case anyone was watching – well, he knew somebody was. But who? He rolled over and up, sitting with his legs crossed, and looked quizzically at his babysitter _du jour_.

“Well, hey,” he said. “What’s up? Just chilling?” He laughed at his own joke.

The man (or, possibly, ice robot) tilted his head at Jerome. He had white hair, and he wore round red goggles and a full metal suit, glowing blue in places. The armour was smoking a little, like the dry ice they used to use sometimes at the circus. “So, you’re Jerome Valeska,” he said.

Jerome bowed as best he could while sitting. “In the flesh! Somewhat miraculously,” he joked, waving a hand at his face. “Who’re you?”

“Victor Fries,” said the robot man.

“I gotta ask, is the whole – you know – _look_ an aesthetic choice, or…?”

“It’s a containment suit,” Victor deadpanned. He sure didn’t talk with a lot of expression.

“Oh, I see. I mean so’s this, if you think about it.” Jerome gestured to his own clothes, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

Victor sighed.

“Don’t talk much, hey?” Just his luck. Nobody except Ed had really talked to him yet, and it wasn’t like Ed had done it to be nice. “Gotta make sure the personality matches the looks? I can respect that. I mean, look at me! Well, normally. Look like an adolescent circus freak, act like an adolescent circus freak…”

“Adolescent?”

“I look older than I am, on account of the whole ‘being stabbed in the throat and forcibly revived through electroshock without my face on’ situation.”

Victor tilted his head. He also didn’t express much facially.

“I mean, d’you see anybody carding me? Hell no. Which would be great if not for them screaming and calling the cops instead, blah blah blah. I’m technically still seventeen, though. How long’s it been since I died?”

“About two years. It’s September.”

Two years? He’d thought one, for sure, but somehow two years just seemed like a lot more. Double, really. Real man out of time, he was. “So my – so I should be twenty, but instead I’ll be eighteen in a couple months. Or in May. What do you think, do I have to change my birthday, or call myself seventeen for longer?”

The fluorescent lights glinted off Victor’s goggles. “Don’t know.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Jerome cracked his neck. “So, Iceman, everybody’s been reading me stories while I’m stuck in here – you gonna hop on the bandwagon or what?”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “The first guy – bald, sort of goth – what was his name?”

“Victor Zsasz.”

“Another Victor, wow. Anyway, he left me a book and everyone’s just been reading out loud to me. Kinda weird. Not that I’m complaining, can’t read that anyway,” he explained as Victor noticed the book where it lay just outside the cell bars and picked it up, flipping through the pages clumsily with his gloves. “Stupid little letters, right? Moving around all over the page.”

Victor slid his goggles up to his forehead. “Did Cobblepot read?”

“Who?”

“The Penguin, the guy who had you kidnapped. Did he read?”

He was here? Jerome must’ve slept through it. “Oh, him! Yeah. Wouldn’t stop, practically. The guy must really love, uh, whoever that dude is that wrote the book.”

“I can’t read this,” Victor said after a long pause. “I can’t turn the pages.”

Jerome huffed out a breath, disappointed _. Boring_. “Well, what can you do? Snowballs? Ice sculpting?”

“No.”

“Come on, I’m so bored!”

“Look,” the iceman said. “I’m not a babysitter, I’m a biochemist. What do you think I have on me that’s entertaining?”

“Whatever,” Jerome groaned. “How about… oh, tell me about your life before, you know, the ice and stuff.” He lay back, parallel to the bars, and shut his eyes.

He didn’t think Victor was going to oblige for the long moment that he didn’t speak. But then he did, voice sounding even more oddly metallic without Jerome’s being able to see him.

“There’s not much to talk about. I was a scientist. I lived with my wife Nora, and then when she was diagnosed with a rare blood disease I started experimenting with cryogenics. I was looking for a cure. But she switched out the formulas just as I was trying to save her life, once she found out about my experiments on humans. And…” He paused. “Nora died.”

“That’s during the ice and stuff,” Jerome complained. “I mean before. Like, what’d she look like, where’d you live, what kinds of things did you like to do, what were your goals. I’m trying to live through you here, man!”

“We lived in a small house near downtown. There was a garden out front. We would work on it together before she got sick. We’d go to the library, often, and we had movie nights at home. I was always trying to get her to watch Back to the Future with me. We wanted to start a family.”

“You mean like kids?” Jerome wrinkled his nose. “You actually wanted that?”

“Yeah.”

“Man, my mom never wanted me. Or my dad, I guess, though he was nicer than her except for that I didn’t know he was my father until – well – recently for me.”

Victor didn’t say anything.

“You’d think she could’ve just used protection, right? Would’ve been a lot less work than the constant physical and emotional abuse.” He cracked one eye half-open, looking for a reaction. “You know, what she’d do sometimes was hit me with empty beer bottles, waiting for them to break so she could stab me instead. That was always fun. I never did actually get stabbed, though. Burned lots, strangled fairly often, once or twice nearly drowned. I guess I can check stabbing off my list since dying.”

There – Victor’s eyebrows drew together, just slightly. “So that’s why you killed her.”

Jerome shrugged. “Or cause I’m a grade-A psycho. Take your pick.”

“Mommy issues.”

“Fair. Daddy issues too, though, let’s be thorough. And you’ve got wife and kid issues.”

“Kid issues?” Victor looked unimpressed.

“Yeah, you know, cause you never got to have any kids and you wanted ‘em? I don’t get that, by the way.”

“That’s because you’re a grade-A psycho.” Jerome could’ve pinched himself, he was so sure he’d caught the corners of Victor’s mouth twitching ever-so-slightly upwards.

“Guilty as charged,” he quipped, closing his eyes again. “Now tell me about that Future movie.”


	6. The Sandwich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a timeskip since the last chapter - I feel that it's about time to move along to the next segment of the plot, so I may do a sort of a montage next and then get going. This chapter is just a fun, fluffy idea I had with Ed and his intellectual snobbery.

Riddler

It was all too short a time before the Riddler had to return to the safehouse’s basement. His first interaction with Jerome had been one of his strangest encounters ever, and that was counting all of his in-mirror conversations with stupid Ed. Certainly he’d expected some degree of strangeness when it came to the red-haired serial killer, but not being passive-aggressively pestered into reading aloud. Jerome was smart – not as smart as the Riddler, but still. He’d known just how to get what he wanted. Literary inaccuracies.

And now the Riddler was back, this time with a particularly mischievous form of entertainment: a book of grammar diagramming exercises. Ed had suggested, somewhere deep in the recesses of their shared brain, that he bring along some food and water, and ultimately the Riddler had obliged, if only so he could push his less-intelligent half back down again.

“Eddie!” Jerome’s raspy voice echoed down the hallway as he caught sight of the green-suited man. He was standing, arms dangling through the bars. Riddler avoided coming too close as he approached. “How’ve you _green_?”

The Riddler’s entire spine stiffened at the bad pun.

“So, what’re you reading today?”

“I,” the Riddler responded. “Will be completing this book of crossword puzzles today. You, if you require entertainment so desperately, can try these.” He slid the grammar workbook through the bars, then, having almost forgotten, the sandwich and water bottle.

Jerome’s pupils dilated almost imperceptibly at the sight of the food, but he still narrowed his eyes at the Riddler. “What’s this for?” He was suspicious.

“When did you last eat?”

He was grinning, but still obviously distrustful. “Why?”

“Look, I don’t care, but I imagine you’d rather be plotting an escape and further crimes than lying dead in a basement, having starved.”

“Okay, valid. But how does me being alive benefit you and Pengy?”

“Oswald wants to use you as a bargaining chip with the GCPD. If you’re dead, you’re not valuable.”

That seemed to be enough for Jerome, and he crouched down to take the food and water. There was a twinge of emotion, for a second, which the Riddler attributed to stupid Ed, and he quickly returned to his normal, cold self. He pulled the crossword book from where it was folded into his pocket.

He was halfway through his second puzzle when Jerome spoke again. He’d eaten exactly half the sandwich and drunk half the water. The Riddler appreciated his forethought in saving some. He wouldn’t have guessed that Jerome possessed that kind of presence of mind: though a small thing, he knew that it was hard to ration when you hadn’t eaten in a long while. And he was sure it had been a long while. “Hey, what the hell is this?”

The Riddler looked up to see Jerome glaring at the pages of the workbook. “Grammar diagramming exercises. I thought that you might benefit considering your inability to read the last book.”

“Why? It’s just weird drawings and shit.”

The Riddler sighed, figured that Jerome would only continue to talk until he’d agreed to explain the exercises, and slid closer to the bars. “The point is that by diagramming sentences, you can understand them better. It enhances your literacy.”

Jerome moved close enough that either of them could probably have reached through the bars and touched the other. “Okay, I’m bored, I’ll bite.”

And this was how they spent the next hour: the Riddler explaining and Jerome, surprisingly, listening. Although he was certainly not on-task. That’s why it took an hour. Finally, the topic had been thoroughly explained, though, and the Riddler returned to his crosswords as Jerome – again surprisingly – tried his hand at the problems in the workbook.

“Hey,” he said after a while. “This ain’t bad!”

The Riddler didn’t bother responding.

“Is this right?” Jerome slid the book, open, over to the Riddler, who took a look at it, pulling his own green pen out of his chest pocket. He was genuinely taken aback at Jerome’s success with the problems. Of course, he’d made his fair share of mistakes, but for somebody who made regular use of “ain’t”, he’d done well.

The rest of the Riddler’s shift went in much the same way. He pointed out the errors in Jerome’s work for another while, but the younger boy came to the end of his attention span quickly. After that, they swapped jokes and riddles. Jerome’s jokes were fairly stupid, but he made an effort at the riddles. Not an altogether successful effort, but he seemed more focused on finding the funniest answer than the most correct. When he was replaced, the Riddler was glad to get back to his other responsibilities, but he felt that he had a lot to think about in terms of Jerome Valeska.


	7. First Impressions

Jerome

The next days blurred into each other. Jerome slept a lot, for once in his life, and he’d wake up and talk to whoever was watching him at the time. Even Penguin turned out to be an okay conversation-haver, surprisingly.

Jerome wondered how long this was going to go on for. Ed had mentioned using him as a “bargaining chip”, but they must have been playing a pretty long game, if his estimates on how long he’d already been in the cell were at all accurate. His captors – that sounded really fancy, didn’t it? – were certainly interesting, though.

His impression of Victor Zsasz, the bald, vaguely goth man who’d kidnapped him in the first place, was that he had more than a few screws loose. His second impression was that “Victor One” was maybe the sanest guy involved in the whole plot. From what he could gather about the assassin, he didn’t seem to have much in the way of a tragic backstory or anything, but his love for both torturing people and milkshakes begged to differ. He was fun. Told a lot of fun murder stories, none of which let Jerome in on any personal details. To be fair to Jerome, though, Victor was _not_ big on talking about himself.

Victor Fries, on the other hand, was surprisingly open about his feelings and stuff for a literal ice-man. At this point, Jerome was pretty intimately familiar with the story about Nora, though he still didn’t really _get_ their relationship. It had taken him a minute to grasp the concept that not only did Victor and Nora actually love each other for real, but that they were also a hundred percent loyal, and that in fact they really wanted to have a kid. Weirdos, right? “Freeze” had started to ask questions about Jerome’s family situation and childhood, though. Which, not that he wasn’t comfortable with bringing up some stories to get a reaction. Something about the fact that Victor’s idea of family was so nice, and Jerome’s was so… not, sort of made him want to keep quiet about it. On the plus side, the guy had a little portable DVD player that he sometimes brought with him. He’d been right about that “Back to the Future” movie, it was fun.

Then there was Ed Nygma. He was interesting. Half the time, he was a total snob, all about his grammar and his riddles and his crossword puzzles. Kind of a jerk, in a nerd way. Then again, he’d brought Jerome that diagramming book, and water and a sandwich, when he didn’t have to. And as far as he could tell, he hadn’t even done anything bad to the sandwich. So ultimately he was pretty neutral, in Jerome’s opinion. The food and the book would normally outweigh the snobbery, but he still wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t some kind of ulterior motive behind them. Ed was entertaining, anyway.

Oswald Cobblepot didn’t seem very friendly. He often came down with his own paperwork (boring) to do, so Jerome’s sleep schedule tended to coincide with Penguin’s shifts. He had tried reading him a story out of the Poe book, but he’d given up pretty quickly after they got into an argument over some stupid symbolism that Oswald thought was _so obvious_ , and that Jerome thought was _absolutely nothing at all._ The bird-like little man always got a funny look on his face when Ed was brought up. Jerome wondered if the mayor might have a crush.

Anyway, he’d have to figure out a way to escape soon, to keep up appearances. He didn’t like to admit it to himself, but aside from the kidnapping thing? People were being suspiciously nice to him. And if he didn’t get out soon, he was going to _like_ it.


	8. X-o X-o Gossip Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I'd die for Victor Fries. Iconic memelord king.

Oswald

“What do you mean, they’ve called it off?” Oswald was furious, fuming, fu – _extremely_ upset.

Ed’s voice was steady on the other end of the phone call. “The GCPD has announced that they’re not looking for Valeska anymore. They say he’s dead and the blackout was the work of a lookalike.”

“But he’s – but – ugh!” He let out a quiet scream, pacing around his dining room.

“So,” Ed continued. “Keeping him around doesn’t seem rational anymore, unless you stage some more attacks, and honestly between being both the mayor and the king of Gotham –” Oswald could hear him smiling slightly at his own wordplay. “I don’t think it’s worth it.”

“No,” Oswald sighed, slumping into a chair. “No, you’re right. I’ll have Victor kill him, then?”

“If you feel that’s necessary.”

“Or, what if – I’ll let him go, see what happens. If he causes more trouble, and he will, then we can catch him again and turn him in. Immediately this time.”

Ed hummed into the phone. “It might work. I’m on my way back to the house. Call Zsasz and Freeze, and we’ll talk about this further with them, alright?”

“Okay.” Oswald let out a breath. “Drive safely.”

“Oh, um – thanks.” Ed hung up.

Drive safely? What a stupid, awkward thing to say. Oswald tapped his good foot on the floor, still irritated, and went about the business of contacting both Victors.

The four of them were gathered around the same dining room table an hour later. Victor Zsasz had one leg hanging over the arm of his chair, while Victor Fries looked somewhat uncomfortable with his metal suit squeezed into his. Ed, of course, looked great. But that wasn’t what Oswald need to be focusing on.

“I’ve decided not to keep Jerome Valeska any longer.”

“You want him dead?” Zsasz asked.

“No. Well – he’s a menace, but his incapacity to be subtle may yet work in my benefit. I’m going to let him go.”

“Yeah, but won’t he just kill a bunch more people?”

“Hopefully,” Oswald mused, then caught himself. “Hopefully not, but the GCPD must be looking for him if we are to use him to our advantage. We’ll catch him again once he’s caused some more trouble.”

Fries shrugged noisily. “Sounds like it’ll work.”

“You want him looked after?” Zsasz asked, likely fishing for a job opportunity.

“He’s like a ticking time bomb,” said Ed. “Chances are, he’ll do something loud and noticeable pretty quickly without any external influence.”

“Look, I’m getting paid either way,” countered Zsasz. “But what if I keep an eye on him, teach him a couple assassin tricks, and give him some really bad ideas? Speed up the process a little?”

“Make him more dangerous? I think not.” Oswald scoffed.

Ed’s brow furrowed. “The sooner Jerome acts out, the more believable it’ll be that it’s really him, since the GCPD announced him dead. They’ll be less and less likely to think they’ve made a mistake as time goes on.”

Oswald scowled. He didn’t want Zsasz, with his tendency to stir the pot just to see what would happen, teaching Jerome anything more chaotic than he already knew. But if Ed agreed with the idea, he was inclined to think it was a sound one. “All right, Zsasz, you can try it, but if the plan backfires I’m holding you personally responsible.”

Zsasz’s grin could only be described as shit-eating. “Whatever you say, boss.”

“So what am I here for?” asked Fries.

“It seemed only right that you should be included,” Oswald responded.

“Great. Glad I put my Robocop suit on,” he groused, standing up to leave. “X-o x-o, Gossip Girl.”

“What?” Oswald’s confusion wasn’t amended, as Fries had already gone, suit clanking all the way down the hallway. Zsasz was stifling a laugh.

“So, meeting adjourned?” Ed clapped his hands.

“Yes,” Oswald confirmed. “Victor, you can go down and take Jerome out.”

Zsasz saluted ironically.

Oswald sighed as he stood up, shifting his weight off his bad leg. This plan had better not fall apart. If it did, his status as – how did Ed put it? – _both mayor and king of Gotham_ could crumble with it. And Oswald had fought too hard for his power to lose it over some arrogant little red-haired clown.


	9. To Name a Chicken

Zsasz

Victor wondered, as he descended the spiral staircase into the basement, what exactly he was going to do with Jerome. He hadn’t really expected his suggestion to be taken seriously. Veronica was going to laugh at him, that was for sure, after their conversation in the car about not getting attached.

So maybe he’d named the proverbial chicken. So sue him.

Jerome was asleep. Victor could be fairly certain he wasn’t pretending, because his shoulders weren’t shaking under the blanket: Jerome, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be incapable of holding back laughter. Victor still closed the cell door behind him as he entered, though, and slipped a blindfold over the boy’s head so that the security of Penguin’s safehouse would be maintained upon their exit.

A sudden grip around his wrist alerted Victor to Jerome’s awakening. “Who’s that?”

“It’s me,” Victor told him.

“Victor One?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t see you. Or anything.”

“I blindfolded you.”

“Why?” Jerome thought for a moment. “Ooh, am I going someplace?”

“Yeah,” Victor said again. “The GCPD isn’t looking for you anymore, so Penguin’s letting you out to make some trouble. I said I’d keep an eye on you in the meantime.”

“Aw, that’s sweet! What are we, besties or something?” Jerome laughed.

Victor sighed and pulled Jerome up to his feet by one skinny wrist. “C’mon, my girls are gonna laugh at me and I’d rather get it over with quickly.”

“Girls? What girls?”

“Keep it in your pants, clown boy. I live with a group of female assassins. They’d kill you very easily.”

Jerome’s steps were slightly unsteady as he was pulled along, out of the cell, unable to see. “Oh, I’m sure they would. Then again, though, it’s not that hard to do. I mean, I’m the first to admit I’m not exactly in peak physical condition.”

Victor, busy trying to herd Jerome up the spiral staircase without causing them both to fall, didn’t respond.

“You knocked me out pretty easy, hey? Arm ‘round the throat – I gotta try that sometime,” he chattered on, nearly knocking himself off balance as he mimed the action. “That’s not a threat, by the way. Well, who knows, but I’d have to be pretty damn stupid to tell you what I was planning.”

Finally, they reached the top of the staircase and continued on toward the nearest exit. As they left the safehouse, Victor spun Jerome around a few times just to be careful. Jerome tripped over his own feet almost immediately, bumping into the brick wall of the building, which pretty much negated any effect spinning him around would have had in the first place. It seemed to startle Jerome, as he went from there directly into a coughing fit. “Sorry. Throat.”

Right, his stab wound. The kid was just a ton of problems all packaged into one human-shaped meatsuit, wasn’t he? Victor had to reach up a little to push Jerome’s head into the backseat of the car they were going to take; the redhead was about an inch taller than him. Victor made sure that the back doors were locked before getting into the driver’s seat. He didn’t bother buckling his passenger in this time.

“Nice seats,” Jerome remarked. “So, we’re going to your place? What for? You’re not gonna kill me, right?” He leaned forward, barely avoiding cracking his head off the center console as he swung his arms around the passenger’s seat headrest. “Cause Pengy wants me to get up to no good?”

“Nah, I’m not gonna kill you.” Victor started the car. “My girls might if you bother them, though.”

“What kind of thing am I supposed to be doing, anyway?”

“Just something noticeable, I guess.”

“Well, what if I don’t wanna do what Pengy – or anyone – says?”

Victor shrugged, then remembered that Jerome couldn’t see him. “I don’t know.”

“Huh. I’m still a little confused, though, cause you’re taking me to your place like I’m still a prisoner, but you’re saying I get to go do whatever I want. Am I just stupid post-rebirth or what?”

“You’re not really a prisoner. I just thought you might need someplace to crash. Plus, I’m always up for shenanigans and you seem to get involved in a lot of them.” They were getting close to home now. Victor drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel, preparing himself for the inevitability that he was about to be laughed at.

Jerome didn’t say anything for a few minutes, until they pulled into the parking garage of their destination. “Here already?” He sounded surprised. “That was fast.”

The building where Victor and his employees lived was once a hotel. There were five stories to it, two of which were still used for their original bedrooms and bathrooms. The ground floor held the kitchen and general common areas, and the two topmost levels were for storage, weapons, tools, and anything else that might come in handy. There was also a basement that had been converted into a gym and training space. It was a pretty perfect headquarters.

Victor got out and opened the door closest to Jerome’s head, which he then had to catch as the boy lost his balance and toppled sideways. He undid the blindfold, surprised Jerome hadn’t taken it off himself. Probably some kind of power play.

“Ouch,” Jerome complained, squinting in the early-evening sunlight. “Warn a guy before you burn his eyes out, would you?” He climbed out of the car. Victor took off at a quick pace toward the elevator, very much aware of the quick footsteps bouncing along behind him. The parking garage elevator was actually the only working entrance to the building. It was often left unguarded, but it was equipped with hidden cameras and motion sensors, and there was a passcode to get inside, which Victor now punched in.

“Don’t be stupid, okay?” He could only hope that Jerome wouldn’t embarrass him too much in one go.

“Can’t promise anything on the intellectual front,” Jerome responded. “But I am unbelievably charming, as you know, so there’s nothing to worry about there.”

Great.

The elevator door slid open, allowing them into what had been the foyer of the hotel, and what was now a sort of half-entrance, half-living room. There were a few girls playing cards around a coffee table, and they all looked up as Victor and Jerome entered, hands moving subtly toward concealed weapons. “Hi, ladies,” he said, noticing that Veronica was among those playing. She arched an eyebrow at him.

“Who’s that?” One of the girls, Cath, tilted her head as the group left their game to step forward. She was one of Victor’s go-to companions if he needed backup. Her short, dark hair was styled into a tall puff, and she wore purple lipstick, with one eyebrow bleached and the other filled in with a black rectangle.

“I’m Jerome,” said Jerome, in a tone that was clearly trying to flirtatious but that wasn’t entirely succeeding. “What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Oh, you’re that cult guy that Vic kidnapped!” Cath smirked. “Guess you really did name the chicken, huh, Vic?”

“I’m just keeping an eye on him until the cops figure out he’s not dead,” Victor defended himself.

“Did you buckle him in on the way here?” Cath teased.

Victor looked, betrayed, toward Veronica, who was leaning against the arm of a chair. “Did you tell the whole story to everyone?” She shrugged, smiling. The reddish streak in her short hair stood out in the sunlight coming through a window.

“I’m not a cult guy,” protested Jerome. “I’m a guy with a cult! Never really went in for organised systems, myself.”

“Whatever you say, Corpse Bride,” joked Cath. “So where are we keeping this guy?” she asked Victor.

“One of the empty rooms on the third floor, probably,” he said. “Only until he’s gotten the GCPD’s attention.”

“Okay.” The girls sent each other knowing looks. “We’ll help you out with your chicken.”

“It’s – he’s not –” Victor sighed and turned to Jerome. “Come on, I’ll take you up.”

Jerome followed him to the inside elevator. “See you ‘round, ladies!” This set off another round of hardly-stifled giggles.

Once they were going up, Jerome leaned back against the metal bar inside the elevator. “You weren’t kidding about your coworkers, Victor One, they’re cool.”

Victor grimaced. “I don’t think they’re ever going to let the chicken thing go. You’ll have a nickname by tomorrow, I bet.”

“A nickname? What, is Jerome too awesome or something?”

He rolled his eyes, not bothering to respond. Jerome began to tap his foot on the ground.

The elevator chimed, doors opening, and they turned left down a hallway. The ugly hotel carpeting had been torn up and replaced with hard floor, and their footsteps were audible, though Jerome’s weren’t as loud as Victor would have guessed. Finally, turning another corner, they came one of the farthest rooms from anyone else; Victor preferred to keep Jerome as contained as he could considering the circumstances. The room was a standard hotel suite, except for the lack of carpeting: the door opened into a small kitchenette and living area, and there was a bathroom and a bedroom with a double bed.

“This is you,” Victor said, letting Jerome past him into the space.

“This is me,” the boy echoed, stiller than Victor had seen him yet as he looked around himself. “This whole thing is just me?” He whipped his head back toward the older man, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Uh, yeah, nobody’s sharing with you.”

“Holy shit, this is huge!” He played it off like a joke.

Victor stood somewhat awkwardly in the doorway. “So, there’s bathroom stuff in the bathroom, and towels in the closet, and the bed should be made. You don’t have any other clothes, right?” No, of course not. “I’ll see if I can find you anything.”

Jerome, for once, didn’t say anything, too busy exploring the contents of the little desk against one wall.

Victor nodded to himself and left, shutting the door behind him. What a weird little psycho he’d dragged in.


	10. A Murder-y Je Ne Sais Quoi

Jerome

Jerome had never been anywhere this nice, ever. Not that he was comfortable – he wasn’t, because something seemed off to him about the niceness of the place – but it was very tempting to just enjoy it for a little. As soon as Victor left, he immediately began to inspect every inch of the suite, running around and looking for anything that might prove him right. But he didn’t find anything of interest, except for a cup in the cupboard which he had some water from. Even the water seemed normal.

Now, he was sitting with his knees up to his chin on an armchair, taking advantage of the notepad and pen he’d found in the desk. He was drawing a human eyeball, and a knife about to cut into it. He’d always liked art – he’d always been good at it. That was the one thing he’d always been able to do, art. When he was a kid, everyone had thought he was stupid, because he couldn’t focus and he couldn’t read well and he wasn’t any good at math. But he could always draw out stories, paint sets and signs, or help the circus performers with their makeup.

He yawned, and a strand of his hair flopped into his face. That reminded him of something. The bathroom had a shower in it, with soap and everything, and it might even produce warm water. Jerome didn’t trust the niceness of this room, but he certainly intended to use that shower before he left. He hopped up, out of the armchair, and set the notepad and pen on the desk. Then he went to the closet, where there were towels. The towels, too, were nice.

It took him a minute to figure out how to turn the shower on. Once he had, though, he discovered that the water did in fact come out warm. He’d only half-closed the bathroom door, partially because he didn’t love the feeling of being shut in, and partially because he’d thrown his white straitjacket outfit, the one he’d been taken from the carnival in, on the floor in the doorway.

He shivered as the hot water touched his skin. He wasn’t used to it: the showers at Arkham and for most of his life had been cold if he could get them, and he _had_ just been dead for quite a long time. The steam stung his face a little where it had been sewn back on. He found the bar of soap, packaged into a little cardboard box, and scrambled not to drop it as he took it out. It smelled clean. There was also shampoo and conditioner, separate from each other and the bar soap, which he decided to try using just for kicks, mixing them together in the palm of his hand before washing his hair. Some got into his face, hurting his stitches more. He brushed it away.

The first thing he noticed after stepping out of the shower and drying himself off was that his straitjacket was missing from where he’d tossed it onto the floor. He knew it – something sketchy was going on. He looked out of the door, expecting to see another person, but nobody was there. The door to the room was still closed. Jerome frowned.

There – on the desk! A pile of something sat where it hadn’t before. He approached it, cautious, and saw that it seemed to be fabric. Clothes. He rifled through the small pile, looking for a trap: crushed glass, maybe, or some kind of blade. Nothing was there. Victor had said something about finding some clothes, hadn’t he? Jerome had figured he was just finding an excuse to leave, though. Weird.

He was starting to feel a little chilly. Despite his distrust, he put on some of the clothes.

There was a mirror in the bedroom. He stood in front of it, feeling almost nervous to see himself: he hadn’t looked in a mirror since coming back to life. So not _nervous_ , exactly – just reacting normally to a newish experience.

The clothes he had on were a little big. He’d had to pull the drawstring on the black sweatpants tight, and the sleeves of the cream-coloured sweatshirt covered his hands. The black socks he’d found in the pile seemed to be new, still in their package before he’d put them on. He had his white combat boots, the ones he’d arrived wearing, back on, and they felt maybe a little bit comforting in the midst of this weird new situation. Maybe. After all, he had gotten them himself. He’d killed a cultist for them.

His hair was nearly dry, and it still smelled sweet like the soap in the bathroom. It was still bright orange (thank god), and without having done anything to it he noticed how long it was. He could pull a piece at the front all the way down to the tip of his nose. He recalled, though, that it had been the same length pre-death, so the myth about hair growing after you died must have been made up. His face didn’t look too good. Of course it didn’t look good, it had been cut off, but it still threw him off his rhythm a bit. He guessed it could’ve been worse. The skin surrounding the stitches was red, and it was clear that the wounds would scar, but the stitches themselves were basically invisible. He wondered who had sewn him up and when they’d done it.

He looked, all things considered, not bad, but certainly not as dramatic or imposing as he preferred. Where was the flair? What he resembled most was a sad, skinny, moderately mutilated teenager in somebody else’s sweater. Which, okay, he kind of was. But still, he was missing a certain _je ne sais quoi_ , a touch of _criminally insane murderer_.

There was a knock on the door. Jerome looked around him for a weapon but couldn’t find anything, so he approached it almost silently and peered through the peephole. It was one of Victor’s assassins. He opened the door, grinning like a shark. “Well, hey, beautiful, what can I do for you?”

The assassin smirked. “Hold your horses, ginger. I just came up to let you know we’re all getting ready for dinner if you want to join.”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. “Being in a room with a dozen professional hitpeople is a real fantasy of mine, but…” His stomach grumbled traitorously.

“What else do you have to do?” She flipped her long, blonde hair over her shoulder; the blue streak in it had been right over one of her brown eyes. “And when’s the last time you had anything to eat?”

She took a page out of his own book and didn’t give him a chance to respond, grabbing his arm and pulling him out of the room with surprising strength. “C’mon, most of us don’t bite unless provoked.”

“Man, that’s disappointing. I figured when you said you were having dinner you meant cannibalism, and I got all excited.”

“I’m sure you did.” She chuckled. “I’m Liv, by the way.”

They were heading down an unfamiliar hallway now, not the one that led to the elevator. Liv slammed a door open at the end, exposing a stairwell with a banister, which was smooth and had posts at every corner. “Race you down!” She let go of his arm and leaped up to slide down the railing, lifting off the surface to swing her body around the corner post. Jerome let out an incredulous laugh and swung himself over the railing. He hopped down from one bar to the next as she slid.

Jerome landed at the bottom of the stairs a split second after Liv did. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Not bad. You big into gymnastics?”

“I grew up in the circus,” he responded, blowing a stray strand of hair out of his face. “Kinda comes with the territory.” That wasn’t true, exactly. He was shit at gymnastics, but climbing things and breaking into places was a skill that had come in handy a lot throughout his childhood.

“Cool.” She led him around out of the stairwell and around another corner, into a dining room, and through there into a huge kitchen. Victor was there, carrying on a conversation with some of “his girls”, who all seemed to be in attendance as well. Something smelled good. He kept his eyes cold as he looked around, careful to seem as scary as he could.

“Chicken!” One of the ladies – Veronica, he recalled her being called – shouted at him from across the busy room. “How’re you settling in?”

He resented being called _chicken_. “It’s Jerome.”

“Right, whatever. Hey, settle a bet – how long did it take Victor to warm up to you?”

“Warm up?” Jerome grinned. “He started out warm! The guy practically wouldn’t leave me alone.”

Victor gave him a look. Jerome made an innocent face back at him. Veronica laughed.

There was a chiming sound from somewhere on the other side of the group, barely audible over the conversations already going on. Still, within a couple of minutes, everyone had a bowl of chili, whether they were sitting in a chair or on a stool, perched on a counter or other surface, or standing. Jerome found an unoccupied end of the kitchen counter to sit on, legs crossed. Fingers crossed he didn’t get anything on the sweater he was wearing.

He noticed a game of table football starting, and random objects were being tossed around every so often, preceded (or followed) by a “Think fast!” He’d be good at that.

Suddenly, a banana was flying at his head. He caught it just before it hit his face, and his grin was half concealing a grimace. He placed his bowl on the counter beside him.

Somebody cheered. “Chicken’s got reflexes!”

“He’s from the circus,” called Liv. “That shit’s his thing.”

Jerome tossed the banana high up in the air, caught it, and bowed.

“The circus, huh?” Next to him, the girl with the one eyebrow – the one who’d teased Victor when they’d arrived – looked over curiously. “You performed?”

He shook his head, gesturing dramatically with the banana. “Nah, my mom did. When she wasn’t screwing clowns and kicking me around, anyway. I just played the games, got into the performers’ equipment from time to time.”

“So you could tell me, perhaps, if it’s true that the dart games are rigged?” She smiled at him. What was nice about this conversation was that everyone else was busy talking to each other, instead of listening in.

“Depends.” He shrugged. “Mostly, but they’re not impossible if you throw right.” Here was an opportunity to be intimidating. He grabbed a butter knife and held it up, blade catching the light. “The darts ain’t that sharp, like this knife, so unless you stick ‘em pretty hard right in the middle of the target, they bounce off. It’s a matter of balancing the force of the throw with the trajectory you want. Like this,” he explained. He drew back the butter knife, eyes tracking where he wanted it to go, and let it fly with a flick of his wrist. It lodged into the far wall, point just far enough in that it stuck.

The girl didn’t look as nervous as he would’ve liked, though she, like most of the girls around the room, reached toward some hidden weapon. “No deadly force in the kitchen is the rule,” she informed him. “But that was pretty cool for a regular civilian.”

Regular civilian? “I mean, I am a dangerous sociopath.”

She gave him a knowing look. “You’re gonna have to try a little harder if you want to look scary around here.”

“I got myself a reputation in Arkham,” he bragged. “Give me some time, I will here too. Not that I plan on hanging around for long.”

“Oh, you’ve got big plans?”

“I’m not really a planner. I’m an artist – I just wanna paint the town crazy.”

She chuckled. “So, what other tricks did you pick up at the circus?”

She was trying to evaluate his weaknesses. Luckily for him, he could talk about “tricks” for a while without letting any of those slip. “Basic gymnastics, useful knots, care and handling of snakes,” he summarised. “I’ve got pretty good aim with most things, plus I can pickpocket and break into places, though that’s not really circus-related. I can figure out how to use most things as a weapon,” he added, making sure to drive home the point that he wasn’t some weak kid. “And I remember everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yeah, basically. There’s a word for it probably, but if there is I don’t know it.” He laughed at the irony of that. “I just don’t forget jack shit, you know?”

“So you’re saying that you grew up in a circus and learned improvised weaponry, breaking and entering, and petty theft?”

“Petty theft and homicide, c’mon!”

“Huh.” She looked at him thoughtfully, then shook her head to clear it. “You’d better eat your chili before it gets cold.” She slid off the counter to join another conversation, and Jerome took her advice.

It was a couple of hours later when Jerome returned to his room.

After dinner, most of the girls (they referred to themselves as “Zsaszettes”, somewhat ironically) had spilled into the living-room type space on the other side of the kitchen, mostly playing board games, card games, and games that involved projectiles flying around the room. Jerome had been approached by a few different people trying to talk to him. Somehow, he’d been badgered into talking about doing makeup at the circus, and he thought he’d accidentally agreed to do makeup with some of the girls tomorrow.

Was everyone going to insist on undermining his scare factor? He’d killed his parents, massacred the GCPD, led a gang and then a cult, and shut off all the power in the city. He had the face of a monster and a psychological profile to match. But somehow – maybe it was the too-big sweater, the soft hair – maybe it was the fact that they’d all killed before – these people seemed to just straight-up not be afraid of him. At all. He didn’t like the feeling.

Jerome didn’t even bother to do anything but take off his boots before collapsing onto the bed. He was almost asleep before he could even finish thinking how soft it was.


	11. Damn Them to Hell

Jonathan

Jonathan was grateful for the rain. It was cold, and he’d started to sniffle hours ago, but it was good that he was wet. It would make him harder to burn. It would make him harder to catch, a little less vulnerable to the fire burning inside the thing that was chasing him.

It was always nearby. The scarecrow. Sometimes, they were one, Jonathan and the scarecrow, and then he was the monster. But not now. Not out on the cold Gotham streets, head splitting with withdrawal from whatever god-awful pills they’d had him on in Arkham. Damn them. The scarecrow was always just behind him – just around the last corner – just out of reach. Its long twig fingers would grab at him, scrape at his skin.

Jonathan hated Gotham City. It was a hateful place, all busy intersections and dark alleyways. He missed home. He’d grown up in a farmhouse a while outside of the city – just within the jurisdiction of the GCPD, damn them to hell. Damn James Gordon, damn the lot of them. They were the reason he couldn’t go back. They brought the scarecrow. They’d shot his father over and over until he was dead, and for what? He’d been working on a cure for fear. Sure, there were casualties, but when aren’t there? God knows they needed such a cure after Jonathan’s mother died. It was a house fire. After that, he and his father were left in the husk of their house, top floor burnt away. They were a husk of a family, without her.

There was a quiet crash from behind him. Jonathan jumped and looked back; it was impossible to say whether the noise resulted from the stray cat he saw pawing through a trashcan, or from the scarecrow. He walked faster. Another lucky aspect of the bad weather was that it kept Gotham’s citizens largely inside, especially as it was getting darker. That also meant, though, that the scarecrow’s power would be growing. The fact of his ever-worsening withdrawal symptoms only spelled trouble.

The buildings around him began to look familiar, and he continued on, risking quick glances over his shoulder to make sure he was still evading the scarecrow. Why had he been here before? He couldn’t remember. His head was fuzzy, but he still pushed on, hoping that there was some real destination nearby. He’d come here to meet someone, hadn’t he? Another right turn, and he felt as though he ought to be almost there. There – a building on the left side of the street, dilapidated and grey. That was the place. He stumbled toward the door, close to the end of his energy.

Jonathan knocked on the door. No answer. Maybe his memory had led him astray. Regardless, he couldn’t go on in this state, and this weather. He sunk down onto the front steps, wrapped his arms around himself, and settled in to wait until morning. He couldn’t sleep, not now, not with the scarecrow hunting him – but he couldn’t keep walking. He’d have to watch, and stay very still. And not fall asleep.

A drop of rain fell onto his face; he blinked to clear it away. Once, twice. The third time he closed his eyes, he didn’t open them.


	12. Some Frankly Sketchy Blankets

Freeze

Victor Fries was, as always, holed up in his lab. The temperature-controlled basement of the building he was staying in worked very well for him; he’d stolen scientific equipment with which to furnish it, and he had it sealed off from the top floor so that he could maintain a comfortable negative-thirty-degree temperature. Earlier today, he’d been pulled away from his work for a meeting with Penguin and his group of ridiculous criminals. He’d had to put on his stupid robot suit. The suit kept him cool when he couldn’t be in cold weather. Without it he’d die, so really having it was the best option, but it looked terrible and was uncomfortable.

He was working on a cure. Well, that was half of what he was doing. The other half was maintaining and improving his weapons – he’d become a fairly well-known unsavory character after his ‘incident’. The ice gun was pretty fun to use, admittedly, as were the pressurised cold grenades, but he still wished he didn’t need them. As soon as he could cure himself, he could return to a normal life. He could drink coffee again. Hot coffee, without the heat killing him from the inside.

God, he missed coffee. The old Victor Fries practically lived off of the stuff, but now? Closest he could get was iced, and grocery shopping was always a hassle anyway because of the suit and the whole notorious-criminal thing. So mostly he ate frozen vegetable medleys and popsicles and stuff like that, that would keep for a long time at low temperatures. Like him. He smirked to himself, tinkering with his gun. He was keeping for a lot longer of a time than he’d expected, and at a lot lower temperatures.

Only he could screw things up this badly. You start out trying to save the love of your life from a horrible death, and what are the results? She’s dead, you’re wanted for serial murder. And then it gets worse, because you try to kill yourself and be done with the whole thing, but you fail and end up looking like a shitty live-action Abominable Snowman.  
At least the babysitting gig was over. Penguin had roped him into guarding an underground cell where he had Jerome Valeska. Which, again, sounded pretty straightforward. But Jerome, despite being a serial killer and maybe cult leader (Victor was unclear on that point), was mostly just a loud, annoying kid with a shit-ton of parental issues. Victor had felt almost a little sorry for Jerome, actually: he, too, had come back from the dead changed. He was two years behind the rest of the world, and his cult had cut off his face. And, sure, maybe Victor found that a little relatable, and maybe Jerome had gotten him talking about Nora and about the family they never got to have. And maybe that had put him in mind of the fact that Jerome was a kid himself. Maybe.

But it didn’t matter, because now Zsasz had the kid, and Victor could get back to his priority, which was his work. He looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that it was around eight – it would be getting dark out, so he’d better go upstairs and check to make sure that everything was locked and put away. He put on the lighter, more comfortable version of his containment suit. It was one of the things he’d been developing, and it was less effective than the clunky armour. For the upstairs of his hideout, though, it was enough: the air was chilly up there, if not as cold as it was in the lab. The stairs creaked on his way up, and he blinked in the bright, yellowish light of the bulbs he kept on to dissuade intrusions. All the rooms upstairs seemed to be as he’d left them. He checked the locks on the windows and the back door, then went to the front door to do the same. It was locked, as it should be, but when he jiggled the door handle there was an unusual weight against it. Something was out there on the other side, unless he was very much mistaken.

The door opened inward, toward Victor, so he drew it open slowly after unlocking it. For a second he couldn’t see anything outside. Then a dark shape shifted, down on the ground, and fell from the doorframe and half-into the building. It was a person. Victor cast a cautious glance to either side of the door, not wanting to be seen by anyone who might report on his location. Nobody was visible, so he turned his attention to the body at his feet.

It seemed to be a guy, wearing an ill-fitting grey shirt and jeans, with shaggy, dark-brown hair falling over his face. Hopefully he was dead. Victor could always use another test subject, and a freshly dead body would work quite nicely. He had to push the hair off of the body’s face to feel for breath or a pulse. As soon as he did, he swore quietly to himself for two reasons. First, the body wasn’t dead. Second, Victor knew him. Which meant that he was also unwilling to kill him himself.

He dragged the body – the boy – inside reluctantly. Of all the rotten luck. It was Scarecrow, somebody-or-other Crane. Victor had worked with him before, briefly, and he’d liked (or at least hadn’t disliked) him. Crane was probably around nineteen or twenty. He was very bright, interested in biochemistry and neurology, though he was also paranoid and neurotic. He was the closest thing to interesting company that Victor had experienced since becoming a criminal.

So Victor lifted him, noting how light he was, and carried him inside, locking the door as he did so. It was warm on the main floor. Well, warm to him, even in his lighter suit – it would be pretty chilly for Crane. The boy seemed sick, Victor thought, putting him down on the rarely-used kitchen table. His forehead was slightly shiny with sweat. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, and his shirt was far too big for him. It was impossible to say what was actually wrong, though, except for that he’d been out in the rain. The best thing for him was probably to try and warm him up. What was there here that might work?  
After more looking than was probably reasonable, Victor located some frankly sketchy blankets shoved into the back of a closet. Who knew when they’d last seen the light of day. Whatever worked, though. He piled them on top of Crane, not really able to do much more than that, and wiped his own forehead with the back of his hand. The heat up here was getting to him.

He went back downstairs pretty much immediately. He wasn’t about to risk heatstroke over some kid he hardly knew, and besides, a freshly-dead body would be rather useful for his work. In the meantime, though, he’d continue his progress on the cold gun. If Crane was alive in the morning – well, he’d cross that bridge if and when it approached him.


End file.
